Isle de Nantes

I like Nantes ( pronounced Nont ) It's a city of art and music and each time we've visited there's been something on. 

 But firstly this morning we started at the Jules Verne centre on the Isle de Nantes. This island in the middle of the Loire used to be a ship building yard. It's now a living monument to Verne, a son of Nantes, and the famous writer of adventure stories like '20,000 leagues under the sea'

They've created monsters from his imagination. You can go for an elephant ride, or on a merry go round on creatures deep under the sea

More merry go rounds

It a huge place so you can put your kids in one of these bikes 

They've kept the old slipway and cranes and a traditional wooden boat yard where they are restoring the St Michel, Jules Vernes own yacht

A simulated moonwalk

Heading to the city centre we pass the monument to the abolition of slavery. Nantes was a major centre of the trade and each of these plaques set into the ground has the name and date of a ship full of slaves. There are 100's and 100's of them. Over the 200 odd years the trade existed there were 27,000 estimated shipments. Not all through here though

This week its sculpture time ! I like this piece using chairs . They seem to swirl around and then spill into the cafes around it. The cafes changed their seat colours to go with it

Had a look around the centre. The chateaux, the port, then headed back to Reze'

Spot the bus?

   John and Myriams 2 girls Estelle and Celine were there this evening and we had a singalong.

Tomorrow morning we're heading to Redon in Brittany along the Nantes -Brest canal. John and Myriam help us plan the route